"I'll admit I may have seen better days,
but I'm still not to be had for the price of a cocktail,
like a salted
peanut"(Margo Channing)

Wednesday, 28 August 2013

Prestatyn Weekly 1926

I found this old local newspaper dating from January 6th 1923 when I was clearing out bric-a-brac

It makes for a fascinating read...

I noticed with amusement that on the front page it was reported that on January 1st rail fares of Great Britain were reduced by one farthing per mile! An event "that's been received with satisfaction by railway travellers throughout the country."

I could not find out for myself how much fares were back then but I read in this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16390608that until 1968 fares were set at 3.25 old pence a mile (1.3 New Pence).

I was interested to learn what season tickets cost. Stevenage to London £3,200; St Albans to London just shy of three grand and the most expensive for a season ticket at 31p a mile, twenty times what it cost pre 1968 but, adjusted for inflation, only 1.5 times as much. In real terms, therefore, rail fares have only risen 50% since 1968 and I am using the worst case as an example the most expensive route in England. The average cost per mile across the network is, at 20 pence per mile (ppm), in real terms exactly the same as it was 45 years ago. Yes, I was surprised too!

I wondered how much it cost to run a car by comparison so quoting from a Telegraph article:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/columnists/mike-rutherford/9412681/RAC-cost-of-motoring-figures-dont-add-up.html

"The most common medium-size cars, such as the Ford Focus, Hyundai i30 and Volkswagen Golf, cost about 45ppm. And many huge family saloons/archetypal company cars, such as the Ford Mondeo, the Citroën C5 and the Vauxhall Insignia come in at about 50ppm."

Looking at it this way, season tickets represent pretty good value for money.

A season ticket from Swansea to Cardiff is only 6ppm and the walk into the station and buy a one off ticket only 20p a mile.

The range of walk into the station and buy a ticket is from the 20p of Cardiff to a whopping 80p a mile Manchester to London but even from Manchester a season ticket is only 14ppm.

Your not-so-boring post, John, provoked me to llok all this up and now I am left with the question: Why the huge disparity in fares?